The Elder Scroll of Good News
by LarielStorn
Summary: The Third Impact happened. Earth has been damaged to a point where what's left of humanity may only manage to survive for a few decades before the seemingly unavoidable end. Shinji Ikari and Asuka Langley Soryu, former EVA pilots, have been transported by Rei, now an immaterial and powerful entity seeking to save Earth's humanity, to a new land where they might prosper: Tamriel.


_This story came to me some time ago when I asked myself: "What if the Third Impact that we saw in the End of Evangelion damaged the Earth itself beyond repair, or at least made it far more inhospitable for human life?". I asked myself this because, if I remember correctly, the Second Impact had tremendous environmental and ecological consequences that would have probably repeated themselves after the third one. Even if humanity manages to put itself back from the LCL lake, they would certainly struggle far more than before as they could be awakening into a now dying world. At the time I had also been playing both Skyrim and Oblivion for many many hours and it occurred to me how neat of an idea it would be if the survivors from Earth would find a way to reach the world of the Elder Scrolls amid the wars between the Thalmor and the Empire, and how their arrival could be a turning point for the latter if the earthlings would share their superior technological knowledge with the Empire in exchange for a land for themselves where the patch of survivors from Evangelion can build their new home. That idea evolved into this current story, which would initially follow Shinji and Asuka for some time to build the foundations for that large scale conflict I envision, while also examining the side effects the events of the series had on those two characters. This will be a very character driven story as far as I plan. Hopefully I can keep myself motivated enough to write this story. I've read a great deal about the lore and mythology surrounding both the Elder Scrolls and the Evangelion universes; however, I'll go right ahead and ask you to consider this more like an alternative universe and my own adaptation of both mythologies: I'll try to reference as much as I can from both universes, but if I think of something that might conflict with the lore from the main universe, I might go with that route for plot sake rather than ignore it (specially if I find it will improve the story a lot)._

_What can you expect?: Battles, drama, thrilling events, comedy, Shinji going back to being Asuke b**ch, Shinji maybe becoming badass after a bunch of character development, Rei*Lilith joining the Elder Scroll Pantheon, a hell of a lot of mystery and the obligatory running gag of Shinji being associated with Gaiden Shinji because of his name._

_I will need to finish off a healthy amount of chapters before I post heavily in here, but I leave you here the prologue of the story. Hope you like it._

**Prologue**

The Third Child stood on top of the Second, his hands tight around her neck and his eyes fixed on hers. Was he trying to kill her? He did not know. What possessed him to do what he was doing? He did not have the faintest idea. All that Shinji Ikari knew was that he had been alone for a long time before seeing her, hours (or maybe days—it was all the same to him) after the event known as the Third Impact. Everybody he knew was gone—all had merged into what Seele had deemed the "perfect" being, the next and final step in humanity's evolution.

He made graves for them though, one for everybody who had, even for the slightest of moments, given him the smallest traces of hope…hope that he had been wrong in that he was not alone. One for his uncles, who did the best they could. One for Misato, the closest thing to a mother he ever knew despite her flaws. Two for Toji (as well as his sister) and Kensuke, his best friends whom he had failed to save. One for his mother, whose soul was now travelling the infinite vastness of the cosmos for all eternity as a symbol of humanity's existence. One for the Rei he knew, gone for certain when she became something far greater than a human. And finally, he had made one for Asuka…to whom he had failed the most, before and during the day mankind disappeared with only the promise of a possibility of restoration.

This last failure was the worst.

He did not love Asuka. He was no fool. Shinji knew that he was too young and too emotionally crippled to understand what love truly was. But that did not meant his feelings for her were not something real, that they were something more than his hormones reacting to the sight of an attractive girl whom he lived with.

_She's like me_, he thought in _that_ moment, during Instrumentality, when his mind had been connected to everyone's, when it had been connected to hers- to her memories and deepest thoughts. He had seen her as a small child…crying in a corner for her mother, who lost her mind after testing the EVA 2. He had seen her leering at her stepmother and father, who neglected her much like Gendo had neglected him. She was a broken thing like himself—most likely even more actually—and Shinji finally understood why Asuka was the way she was; what she was thinking behind every slap she gave him, behind every insult she threw at him: they had been cries for help. Just like him, she had sought an end to the crushing loneliness she had felt in her heart for as long as she could remember, but instead of doing so with cries and inaction like Shinji had, Asuka had done so in the opposite direction, with that fire that Shinji had been attracted to since he first lay eyes on her, but which ironically also had push him away from her.

If he had only responded to it in the way she wanted, if he had only held her like she wanted during their first and only kiss, would things have been different for both of them? Would he have gained the strength to not end the world?

What would have happened if I had done this or that? Could I have done something different if I had tried? Why am I so weak? These were all questions Shinji made to himself over and over during that time alone. And with every one, his self-loathing grew to the point of regretting having rejected Instrumentality. He could have lived without pain. Shinji Ikari, the person he hated the most, could have been nothing, no one at all. But he had decided that pain was part of life, and that a life living as an individual was the right way of living, despite all its cruelties. He had decided that the "happiness" provided by Instrumentality was an illusion, a parody of what the true thing really was. He had decided to be "real". For better or worse, what happened next in his life was completely up to him from now on.

But then he saw _her_ emerging from the LCL Lake, bandaged like Rei had been on the day he first piloted the EVA and laying only a few steps where he had decided to rest. All those feelings of failure came back to him—his hate for himself overwhelming his every thought. Maybe that was why he began choking her: if she was gone, truly gone, then he could gain the strength to end his own life…This thought passed though when he felt her hand softly touching his cheek and when he saw in her eyes a light that made him realize that she _knew_ too the source of his own loneliness, the reason behind his every thought.

_She was one with me_, he remembered. _Why would I be the only one to remember what I saw?_

The grip of Shinji's hand around her neck loosened instantly. His body collapsed next to her. Tears flowed in his cheeks like a river of despair, hate, and regret. _It is all real_, he finally accepted. The mindless state of reflection and wandering that had possessed him since after the Third Impact had finally faded, and for the first time since then, Shinji Ikari was finally ready to truly live once more, this time with the consequences of his own actions. The Third Child, molded by the sins of the old world, was done running away.

"I feel sick" Asuka Langley said in an emotionless tone.

"So do I", Shinji said in between whimpers.

Her eyes watered after a few seconds of listening to his voice, and not long after, she joined him in his cries.


End file.
